Jessica is a year and three quarters and I’ve found it harder not only to get the hours in at work but actually to maintain the interest in work that I used to have… I think this is largely because I got pregnant again almost as soon as I returned to work, so the hormones never settled down. In Norway we get a full year’s parental leave, which certainly makes it easier to give in to the mothering needs for longer, too. I still remember the shock of returning to work after eight months (at which time my husband took over on the home front) and suddenly everyone was talking about social media! It was the same stuff as we’d been DOING eight months earlier, but the term hadn’t existed before my leave. Bizarre.

Ultimately I think it’s fine to just accept a few years of being less passionate and involved in professional life. I mean, I do sometimes worry that things are moving so fast in our field now that participating less will almost dissolve the many years of expertise I built up before Jessica came along. But we have 30 or more years left of our careers. In the big picture view, a few years that are less intense, professionally speaking, are really not a big concern.

Also I’m learning so much about mother blogging, domesticity blogging, home design blogging, crafts blogging, baby blogging, social media for knitting (ravelry.com) and for small-scale crafts businesses (dawanda.com, etsy.com, blogs) and so on… Too bad I can’t for the life of me get the enthusiasm going to write an abstract for AoIR or even a blog post about it all (deadline Feb 26) – but at least I’m reading them, right? At some point I may have something useful to say about it ;)

I also think it’s not just a women’s issue. My husband took leave as well, and certainly received less understanding for that than I had. Now he picks Jessica up from daycare as often as I do, which makes his work days short just as mine are. He’s a little better than I am about making up lost work time in the evenings, but that’s certainly going to be even harder to do with two little ones. Conferences, likewise – we dragged one baby around to conferences a bit, but a baby and a toddler? Sounds like chaos, not much fun for anyone! On the other hand, a toddler can stay a couple of nights with a grandparent.

And having a 13 year old, I can definitely say it gets easier! And it gets easier well before they turn 13.